“That’s it.” Tim spread his arms, smiling.

“Wait. Really?” Cybil leaned her head out the door of the room and looked back down the hall. It was all LED strips and glass and linoleum. Empty.

“Oh, yeah.” He sprinted across the room and plastered himself against the plexiglass wall in the middle.

A spider drone stood in the chamber on the other side. Bigger than any Cybil had seen; the chassis was about a half meter wide, the legs three, maybe four times that. And black, the flat black that screams “military prototype.” The sensor suite twitched. Synthetic muscles tensed behind the joints in the armor plating.

She walked up behind Tim and looked over his head.

“That thing has Rax written all over. Damn, she’s good.” He moved to sit at the the desk against the partition. “Too bad she can’t keep her mouth shut about it.”

There was a crunch; Cybil coughed. “Augh, these are terrible!”

Tim looked up to see a cloud of sugar dust coming out of her mouth and a small white stick in her hand.

“Where the hell did you even find candy cigarettes?” He swiped across the screen a couple times on his tablet before pausing. “No. Fucking. Way.”

With his thumbnail he pulled a piece of faded neon paper from under the terminal.

“Post-Its are mankind’s greatest invention.”

The touch screen of the terminal came to life under his fingertips. With the password on the note he logged in as Monika Hendricks, or as he knew her: “Rax.” A few swipes through the menus started a copy of the drone control program.

“I kinda want to take it with us. I know we’re just here for the software, but it’s right there.” Tim leaned back in the chair; propped his foot against the plexiglass wall.

Cybil eyed the drone and nibbled down the rest of the chalky candy, imagining a wood chipper. She had never actually seen a wood chipper. “Nah, it’s scared.”

“Huh?” Tim was fiddling with his tablet.

“How much longer?”

“Done. Was gonna post and rub it in Rax’s face, but the download finished already.” He slapped the sticky note onto the middle of the terminal’s display. “Let’s go.”

They stepped into the hall. The lab door closed. And clicked.

“Cybs?” Tim’s eyes darted left and right. Clear plexiglass barriers were closed over each end of the hall.

“Yep.” She pulled another cigarette from the pack and slipped it between her lips.

At the end of the hall Cybil dropped her shoulder, pressing herself into the blast shield. The plexiglass bulged around her, wisps of smoke rose from the polymer as she pushed through.

Tim shuffled through the melted passage; he turned back and saw several drones drop from the ceiling behind Cybil.

Her lip curled up and folded the rest of the candy stick into her mouth. Her eyes flared.

“These ones aren’t scared yet.” Cybil turned back into the hall, unsnapping the catch on her shotgun holster.

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